present invention relates to a method of producing dustfree silver nitrate by atomizing a silver nitrate melt and solidifying the formed drops in a cooling medium wherein the atomizing and the solidifying of the drops must be carried out under the exclusion of light.
Silver nitrate is widely used in industry, especially in the photographic industry. It is normally sold and handled in the form of crystals like those which accumulate upon crystallization from an aqueous solution of silver nitrate. When silver nitrate powder is handled, the health of people who deal with silver nitrate can be endangered (e.g. in the form of burns) due to the swirling of the fine dustlike component. Due to the very different sizes of the crystals, silver nitrate exhibits an uneven charging and flow behavior, which is disadvantageous, e.g. for its use in automatic dosing systems when packaging amounts of silver nitrate.
Dustfree silver nitrate was not known in the past. DE application 40 22 648.4 discloses a method for the production of silver nitrate spherules by atomizing a silver nitrate melt at approximately 215.degree. C. and quenching the melt droplets in a cooling medium. This yields a dustfree product but it is not suitable for use in the photographic industry because it exhibits discolorations.